“How does the Indian team decide”: Aakash Chopra questions India’s wicket-keeper choice between Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan

Aakash Chopra questions India’s wicket-keeper choice: India have juggled between a couple of wicket-keepers on this tour.

During the third ODI of India’s tour of Zimbabwe 2022 in Harare, India captain KL Rahul won the toss for the third time in a row. Contrasting to the first two matches, Rahul finally opted to bat to present his batters with a chance of setting a total.

A comparatively slower 63-run opening partnership between vice-captain Shikhar Dhawan (40) and Rahul (30) wasn’t an ideal start for the visitors but Shubman Gill (130) and Ishan Kishan (50) joined hands to put together an attacking 127-ball 140-run third-wicket partnership to power the team to 289/8 in 50 overs.

A maiden ODI century witnessed Gill hitting 15 fours and a six at a strike rate of 134.02 to silence his critics, at least for a while, with respect to questions on his strike rate. Kishan, on the other hand, scored his second half-century in the format to get some runs under his belt after a few underwhelming performances.

Aakash Chopra questions India’s wicket-keeper choice between Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan

Defending a 290-run target, India surprised their fans by handing the wicket-keeping gloves to Kishan in the second innings despite Sanju Samson being the designated keeper at the start of the match.

While both Samson and Kishan are equally capable of performing the duty behind the stumps, the former had done the same in the first two matches in spite of the latter also playing those matches at the same venue.

In the absence of an official reason on the part of the team management, former India batter Aakash Chopra took to social media platform Twitter to question the rationale behind juggling wicket-keeping responsibility between Samson and Kishan.

Coming in to bat at No. 6 in the 44th over, Samson scored 15 (13) with the help of two towering sixes earlier in the day.